There is a make-belief amongst a section of society and intelligentsia that Indian state will defeat Kashmir militancy, the
way which we defeated and finished militancy in Punjab, Assam etc. In this blog,
I argue that this cognitive illusion, rests on false assumptions and hence wrong. According to me, this conflict is unlikely to end in the near and medium future.
Conflicts of this nature can be called War of Attrition (W o A). It refers to
those conflicts where both warring parties put as much as resources possible
and suffer large amount of casualties. These conflicts will last much longer than
initially expected and there will be no much scope for a peaceful end. The
losses on both side keeps on mounting, yet neither side are willing to end the
conflicts by retreating back or by accepting the defeat. Both sides’ keeps shoveling
men and material in to the war front on the hope that other side would exhaust
themselves. These kinds of wars/conflicts end only when one party exhausts
completely or decisively defeated.
WoA are characterized by a paradoxical
scenario in which a set or rational actors pursuing their interest, end up
worst than beginning. Most of the wars in the pre-modern era and the two world wars more or less, were wars of attrition.
In WoA, causalities were very high and wars
were fought for longer periods as rulers believed that failure would amount to
absorbing losses without any gains and hence continuation of the war was a
strategic imperative. Longer the war more will be the destruction and hence more
difficult it will be to call for a compromise or cessation of hostilities. Such
wars would be ended only by one side got completely finished off and are not in
a position to absorb any more losses. Remember, how Germany and Japan was decisively defeated, and Tamil militancy was ended in Srilanka
Therefore, escalation of commitment is a
rational strategy which comes out a powerful cognitive phenomenon called Loss aversion and Sunk cost fallacy which is plainly irrational yet surprisingly is a
factor in human decision. Leaders never
like to cut the losses (in this case, the fallen
soldiers) and come out of conflict hence will invest more and more
resources (and therefore more casualties) and conflict continues. Such wars
then enter in to a Poisson process of
Exponential distribution magnitude and hence conflicts last much longer
than it was expected in the initial days. A toxic mix of psychology, politics
and technology makes this pattern possible. Leaders and people at large believe
that ‘I will stand my ground and wont concede an inch’ while the opponent is
refusing to cut its losses and withdraw. Any leader who believes otherwise will
be portrayed as coward and hence would be outvoted. Rational calculation of
being in power and getting elected would keep the leader in investing more and
more resources, resulting in endless fight and significant losses.
In such wars, there is a widespread belief
that ‘Our boys have fallen and their
sacrifices can’t go vain’. Any compromise will be seen as betrayal of the
cause for which our boys have sacrificed their lives. Hence, must continue the
fight for redeeming the cherished wishes of our fallen souls. Leaders keep
escalating commitments in proportion to their past commitment and thus result
in a Power law distribution.
A conflict can be remained as WoA , only if
both the parties have practically unlimited men and resources to fight the war.
Sovereign state have an advantage that their resources are practically
limitless and can mobilize resources and manpower much longer and more
efficiently than a non state actor who has limited financial resources and can
recruit only from a captive population. State forces can flood the area and can
absorb a lot of casualties, while the opponent will be able to mobilize such
resources only at a heavy social cost which will finally boomerang.
Yet in Kashmir, non-state actors (ie Jihadi
fighters) practically have unlimited manpower resources to sustain its
fighting. This is because Islamic believes of Jihad and Jannat (heaven) ensures never ending stream of militants
and hence the conflict can go endlessly. They have a fanatical dedication to
the ‘holy cause’ which they are fighting for and want to outlast the opponents, ie
Indian forces. Again such conflict is funded and financed by a State (ie
Pakistan) which is again a sovereign state.
As far as India is concerned, India is ready
to do anything, ready to spend any amount to retain Kashmir valley which we
believe as a sacred land. We attach a special emotional relation with it. Due to such
sacred nature of it and emotional and sentimental factors, our leaders and
general public are willing to pump practically infinite amount of resources.
Both parties of disputants are Moralistic actors and hence can’t agree anything
but complete victory over other. This ability for both warring parties to
absorb casualties turns the conflict in to ‘ever lasting’.
A Dollar Auction (DA) game can be a meaningful
analogy to understand this kind of situation. In a DA game, two parties
participate in an auction and highest bidder wins the auction but the second
highest bidder gets nothing and won’t get his money back as well. Here the strategy
of both rational players is to ‘always
outbid the opponent by a Dollar’. As a result, the likely second winner
will always try to overbid the ‘winner’ and hence the bidding war continues for
ever. After a certain stage, the emphasis no longer is winning but is to minimize the losses and both the contestant
accumulate the losses in order to minimize the losses. The paradox here is that
perfectly rational decisions can result in heavy losses.
The protagonists of peace are essentially
under-estimating the capacity of both the warring parties to sustain the
conflict. These ‘sentimental aunts of both the sexes’ are hoping that talks
alone would resolve the conflict , but the reality is that both parties have
invested a lot in this conflict which cannot be recouped.
In Punjab and other similar conflicts, the
resources which were available at the disposal of militants were limited and
finite that they could be crushed after a while. These conflicts were localized
in nature and hence after a point of time, these militants got exhausted and
Sovereign forces could crush them forever.
Another interesting psychological phenomenon
working in this context is Self serving bias and Positive illusion. We
always perceive ourselves in an overly favorable manner and overlook our
faults while exaggerating the failures of our opponents. We also over-estimate
our strength, intelligence, leadership qualities and believe that we can easily
defeat others. Hence, Indian and Pakistani leadership, Kashmiri separatists,
all believe that they can defeat their enemy easily without realizing that each
party in this conflict have similar cognitive bias of Positive illusion. Hence,
we may see a protracted and never ending conflict.
Then in that case, what is the way out? Honestly speaking, I have no solution to
offer. But I believe that solution can come out only if we have a clear
understanding of the very nature of the conflict, psychology of the actors involved, and the
motivational factors of the opponents. Armed intervention is necessary but not
a sufficient response to end these kinds of battle. Conflicts of this nature, in reality, are conflicts of ideologies. Enemy can be crushed only once their ideologies are
completely delegitimized and defanged.
Sources and courtesy - Better angels of our nature - by Steven Pinker
